Threads
by AkaiNagi
Summary: Buffy/Giles Post-season2 crossover with Stephen King's Insomnia. Buffy returns to Sunnydale and tries to rebuild her life, but can't seem to reconcile the person she was with the person she's become. When she disappears from her post at the Hellmouth a second time, the Slayer's ties to her friends and family are stretched to the breaking point. *rewritten/revised*
1. Chapter 1

Threads: Insomnia (Part 1)  
Author: AkaiNagi  
Rating: PG-13 (language)  
Genre: BtVS, x-over with Stephen King's Insomnia.  
Status: WIP, rewrite/repost  
Summary: Buffy returns from Los Angeles carrying a curse, one she must face alone. But when she disappears again, will anyone, even her Watcher, keep faith in her?

Somewhere between Sunnydale and Los Angeles, Buffy Summers had both ended and begun.

So many things in her life had ended. Sometimes she felt like her life itself had ended. Maybe this was what it felt like to have your soul sucked out. Maybe the real difference between Buffy and the creatures she was born to destroy was not the absence or presence of a soul, but rather the self-awareness that it was gone. Vampires seemed to revel the absence, gorging themselves with the hedonism of a happy drunk on a really good bender. She just felt like she had outlived the most vital part of herself.

Maybe vampires lack reflections so they couldn't see what they'd become. She started consciously avoiding mirrors. She was afraid of what might see (or not see) looking back.

She had fled from Sunnydale with a crushing weight on her shoulders: the weight of the decisions she had made, and the decisions she had failed to make. The fate thrust upon her and the fate she had made by her own actions. She was not the person she had always thought she was. Would the old Buffy have sent the man who loved her through the gate to Hell? Stabbing him literally and figuratively in the heart? The old Buffy had loved Angel, or at least thought she had. The new Buffy couldn't forgive Angel for the Angelus he had become. Of maybe she just didn't want to think about her own causative role in that transformation. She walked through her existence tortured by the past; by paths taken, and those not taken. And she was afraid of the future.

The nightmares followed hard upon. Variations on a theme; an instant relived over and over. The gaping maw of Hell, with Angel falling into its depths, propelled by Buffy's own hand. Or sometimes the dreams would be of Angelus, torturing her friends and family; visiting pain on them joyfully, gleefully. Over time the latter images began to overwhelm the former. The pain of Angel's descent and damnation still cut deep. But somewhere in the course of that lost summer, that pain was overwhelmed by the agonizing realization that she had failed her friends and family twofold. She had set the wheel called Angelus in motion, and then she had fled. She had left her loved ones broken and bleeding, while she crawled off to lick her own wounds.  
It didn't even occur to her for weeks that they might not even know if she was alive or dead.

She made that realization somewhere around the Arizona border, in the middle of the night, hunched down in the seat of a Greyhound bus. She was glad for the dark, and for her window seat. She pressed her forehead against the glass, and no one even noticed her tears.  
Every day that passed compounded her guilt. More and more her dreams of Angelus were supplanted by images of her mother's tearstained face, her friends broken and bleeding, her Watcher wondering if his charge would ever return.

In that context, she had not considered sleeplessness to be a bad thing. She did not even notice it at first. Her waking hours had been filled with nearly as many demons as those hours she spent dreaming. She was so wrapped up in hurt and guilt and self-pity that she didn't question why sleep became more elusive. When she did notice, she was primarily grateful. The images that her waking mind supplied were still painful, but far less so than her brutally vivid nightmares. Her demons stalked her waking hours, in dreams they moved in for the kill.

And none of these demons were the slaying kind.

So when she began waking before the harsh buzz of her bargain-priced alarm clock, she thought little of it. She spent the extra few minutes lying in the uncomfortable bed, and staring at the cracked ceiling, imagining the ceiling in her room at home. Wondering if she would ever see it again. Wondering if the day would come when she would feel clean enough to grace the sheets of her own bed.

By the middle of the summer her 5AM wake-up call had rolled back to 4:30. By the end of July it was before 4AM. By the time she turned her eyes back to Sunnydale, she was waking even earlier. The unexpected clash with L.A.'s baddies had driven home that she did indeed have a purpose in life. She had a responsibility, as a daughter, as a friend, and as a Slayer. Even thought she still felt unclean in a way that had nothing to do with the state of her body. Even if the demons still filled her rapidly dwindling nights.

***

In the back of his mind, or perhaps in the back of his heart, he had always known this day would come.

The day when he would have to acknowledge what his elders and betters on the Watchers' Council had always taken as a foregone conclusion.

That Rupert Giles, as Watchers go, was an abject failure.

Granted he had kept his Slayer alive, the bare minimum requisite for the job. On some days that task had been easier than others. He had done what he thought was his best to train her in the physical sense, although she had always been a natural in that area. He had supported her in the capacity of a 'walking encyclopedia of badness,' as Buffy had so glibly termed it. He had watched her rise to meet her destiny, and he had watched her grow as a Slayer.

While he had stagnated; always assuming that his role was to propel her from behind, rather than walk forward with her, hand-in-hand.

It was a basic Watchers' Precept, set forward in black and white: a Watcher and Slayer, unbonded, lacked a united front against the darkness. Lacking a bond, it was a superficial partnership. He had convinced himself it would be enough. He had thought Buffy's own prodigious talent would be sufficient. But an earthly partnership was not enough to combat the unearthly forces that surrounded them on all sides, like a great gaping maw. The Hellmouth; waiting for the chance to devour the Chosen One and all who walked with her.

It was with a profound sense of irony that he remembered the high-handed way he had lectured to Buffy in the Bronze two years ago; their acquaintance merely hours old at that point. All that hogwash he had spouted about 'honing' her senses to locate vampires. He was one to talk. Two years his slayer, and now that she had disappeared, he hadn't the slightest idea where she was. Whether she even yet lived on this earth.

She must, he told himself. For to think otherwise made his heart constrict in his chest in a way that was too painful to bear.

In the course of this interminable, miserable summer, he had an abundance of time to ruminate on his failings. His relationship with Buffy had begun with blazing contention. She had rebelled against him from the start. It had infuriated him. And at the same time it had engendered kind of admiration. She met him with fire; the same kind of fire Giles had turned on his father so many years ago. Like her he had chafed under the yoke of his responsibility; under the expectations of others. Unlike Buffy, he had thrown off that yoke with a vengeance, and it had taken him years to own up to his destiny. At times his Slayer seemed little more than a child, and at other times she astonished him with a clarity of purpose and a determination that belied her years.

When their initial contention had morphed into an at-times grudging respect, he had been pleased. Her biting sarcasm, inane pop-culture references and fits of temper still made him grind his teeth at times. In fact they had a whacking great argument her sophomore summer when he made several irate remarks about her priorities and dedication to her calling. She then introduced him to her seldom used, fairly extensive and surprisingly creative library of profanity. (He learned later that her parents' relationship had been more volatile than he had ever imagined.) He still vividly remembered standing in the middle of the darkened Sunnydale Cemetery, fairly slack-jawed and maybe just slightly impressed, watching her seethe with righteous indignation. He really hadn't meant to start laughing. He remembered thinking that he probably shouldn't be laughing at furious teenage girl with superhuman strength and a deadly weapon, but by then he was sitting on the damp grass quite incapacitated with mirth. When he finally choked down the last of his laughter, he found that he had underestimated her yet again. Not only had she _not_ staked him, she was sitting several feet away, likewise debilitated and giggling uncontrollably. They were lucky no vampires had interrupted their terminal case of amusement, or they would have been caught quite a loss.

It wasn't until later that night, after they amicably parted ways, that he realized he had questioned her dedication to the cause mere months after she had literally laid down her life in its pursuit.

She had died. Cut down by the Master. He had failed even that most basic duty of a Watcher: to keep his Slayer alive. And when she returned, miraculously whole, he had buried his failure with relief. He had thanked a hundred Gods that he knew of, but did not really believe in. He redoubled his efforts in her training, and in retrospect it had been to an overbearing degree. No wonder Buffy had resorted to vulgarity.

Now facing the possibility that he had failed his Slayer for a second time, he realized that he had shirked his responsibility yet again.

He was her Watcher. He should know where his slayer was at all times, so the Watchers' Precepts dictated. But he had thrown out the rulebook the day that he met Buffy Summers. So much was difficult to apply to one so advanced in years. Buffy was positively aged for a Slayer. She was strong, independent, and frustratingly willful. Nearly a woman grown. To attempt to force a formal bond on her was something he could never bring himself to do. Advisable as it might have been in hindsight.

Now he wished that he had. He would give anything to know where she was at that moment. To know she was safe and whole. To go to her side, if not to bring her home, then simply to be with her. Then perhaps the gaping emptiness in his chest would ease.

He was a coward. The harmony and balance he had reached with Buffy had been hard-won. And when it was finally achieved, he found himself loathe to give it up. That his fiercely independent Slayer would balk at being permanently tied to her Watcher was an understatement. Part of him had always considered the idea of a formal Watcher/Slayer bond on par with the Cruciamentum: another way of subjugating a Slayer to the will of the Council. He had been wrong. And that knowledge sat like lead in his chest.

And now? Now he sat in his darkened flat, nursing a cup of tea that, like most everything else tasted like bitter defeat. Now he only wished for certainty, after months of uncertainty tinged with despair. He had feared what would happen if he pushed the bond on her. Now he lived cursing of the fact that he did not. If she resented him, even hated him, he could have survived. At least she would be here to hate him. He could survive anything but the day when he might have face the fact that he had again failed his Slayer, and this time there would be no second chances.

A soft knock at the door served to rouse him from a semi-doze and from his most recent bout of self-loathing. He set down his book next to the now cold cup of tea. Taking a moment school his features lest his morose mood show on his face, he rose to answer the door. It would be the children: no doubt reporting in after an evening of substitute slaying. The term children was now more one of endearment than any statement of fact: their competence in filling in for Buffy had proved anything but child-like. He was thinking to himself how blessed he was to have them in Buffy's absence when his world was suddenly thrown off axis and his heart seemingly stopped in his chest.

He had to remind himself to breathe as he took her in. She appeared to him even more petite than usual. Small and fragile, her face was filled with trepidation. She seemed almost like she might flee if startled. Her posture was tense and guarded, but her gaze was completely open, her eyes impossibly bright in the dim light. He took her in as Xander blathered on in the background, and as the reality of her set in. A warmth started to fill that part of him that had been so empty these long months. He knew that he would again be thanking those hundred deities that he might just start believing in, because she was here, she was home, and she was _alive_. And he said the only thing that he could think of to say. It was far less than he wanted to say, but he tried to inject those few words with all he couldn't bring himself to convey in speech.

"Welcome home, Buffy."

As a soft, tremulous smile lit her features, he knew he had succeeded.

***

For a man with an encyclopedic vocabulary Giles said very little to her the night she showed up on his doorstep three months too late and flanked by Scoobies. Buffy hadn't really known what to expect. During her self-imposed exile, she paid lip-service to the fact that he must be worried about her. But in her grief over Angel, her anger toward Angelus, and her loathing towards herself for not being able to reconcile the two, she apparently had failed to understand the magnitude of the pain she was causing. The pale, drawn features and haunted eyes of her Watcher drove the point home like a punch in the gut.

Over the past two years she had become quite adept at Giles-reading. His facial expressions were always subdued. Maybe that was a British thing? His eyes had always been the most expressive part of his face. That was a Giles thing. Those eyes told her everything from 'I am mildly annoyed at you" to "I'm proud of you, but I'm too English to say it' to 'your footwear is appallingly hideous.'

So she watched his expression go from hollow and pained, to disbelieving, to hopeful and then his face softened into the smallest, yet loudest smile she had probably ever seen. He said something then, but she couldn't remember what, and it was, and it didn't matter because she had seen it in his eyes. She let out the breath she didn't know she was holding, and then damned if her own vision didn't get just a little blurry, and her throat was tight and she wanted to thank him and apologize to him all at once, but she couldn't because she was _not_ going to start bawling on his doorstep.

And now they're all sucking down tea in Giles' living room, and Xander is running his mouth nonstop between cookies, and she can hear herself answering questions, but her voice sounds about a million miles away. And the whole time Giles watches her with the same soft, unreadable expression, and maybe in another situation she might feel uncomfortable under that unrelenting gaze. But now it's the only thing she has to hang onto. So she clings to it, and even when Giles looks toward Willow or Cordy or Oz or Xander (who still hasn't shut up), and even when he ducks back into the kitchen to get more cookies, his eyes always gravitate right back to her. His attention is gentle and undemanding, and she is so grateful because if she didn't have some way to ground herself she would probably end up killing Xander, and she didn't come all the way back from Los Angeles to get charged with homicide again. She knows it's not Xander's fault. He's trying – they're all trying, but they're trying too hard, and she's spent too many hours alone counting cracks in the ceiling of a run-down tenement, and she feels like she's talked more in the last three hours than she has in the last three months.

And when Giles suggests they call it an evening, she's embarrassingly grateful, even if she doesn't show it. The list of things she needs to thank him for is growing longer. Maybe one day it will be long enough to balance out all the apologies she owes him.

She hangs back partly to distance herself from Xander's rambling and partly because she's suddenly afraid to walk out this doorway and back out into the world. She's afraid to go back to that house; to be greeted by a woman whose accusations are hidden behind a cracking veneer of maternal concern. She's also just realized something that has been skirting across her mind since she crossed the Sunnydale city limits: she's not the same person she was three months ago. She's not even the person she was three hours ago. For a fleeting moment she wishes she was back in L.A., alone and insulated and numb. And when she hears Giles at her shoulder she curses herself for even thinking that.

One more for the apology list.

The Scoobies are already out on the sidewalk. Someone calls her name (Willow, maybe?). She sound grates on her like sandpaper. With great effort, she steps forward anyway. And when she turns to say goodbye the look of naked concern in Giles' eyes is too damn much and her vision starts to blur again. Will she ever be able to stand on his doorstep without bawling?

Shit.

She congratulates herself on her remarkably steady voice, even though she's not quite sure what she says. Thank you? Maybe one of those million apologies she owes him? And then she flees. And if she isn't one hundred percent successful swallowing the lump in her throat, at least it's dark enough that no one probably notices.

Then there is the walk home, punctuated by more meaningless, forced conversation. She has to fighting the urge to run, knowing that if she starts running, she'll probably never stop.

When she gets home, she locks herself in her room. She doesn't even make it to the bed. She curls up on the floor and cries. Not silent tears, but great heaving sobs that hurt her chest. She hasn't cried like this for months. She's been numb for so long, she vaguely wonders if all this pain is worth it.

By the time she's done her throat is raw. She climbs into bed, more exhausted than she's ever been. She looks at the clock. Maybe she'll finally be able to sleep.

She doesn't.


	2. Chapter 2

**Threads (Part 2)**  
Author: Akainagi  
Rating: PG-13 (language)  
Genre: BtVS, x-over with Stephen King's Insomnia.  
Status: WIP, rewrite/repost  
Summary: Buffy returns from Los Angeles carrying a curse, one she must face alone. But when she disappears again, will anyone, even her Watcher, keep faith in her?

Buffy was a night person. Duh. It went with being a teenager and a Slayer. A full night's sleep was a luxury: nice, but not vital. Giles had explained to her once that the ability to function on minimal sleep for extended periods of time was hardwired into the physiology of a Slayer. Like superhuman strength and accelerated healing, it was a biological necessity. In theory, it made perfect sense.

But there was a _world_ of difference between theory and practice, and even Buffy's sleep-deprived brain could still do basic math.

On her last night in Los Angeles, Buffy had lain in that hideously uncomfortable bed, nodding off around 11:30 at night. Likewise she had awakened at, (according to the clock) 2:42 AM. It had been with a kind of morbid fascination that she had done the calculations: three hours and twelve minutes.

Three hours and twelve minutes. A month ago it had been over four hours per night. Two months ago it had been a positively indulgent five-and-a-half hours, give-or-take. Buffy had observed her wake-up call rolling back with a sense of detachment. That feeling was pretty characteristic of the whole summer; every action feeling like she was once-removed. Like it was happening to someone else.

At daybreak on her first full day back on the Hellmouth, Buffy numbly surveyed her bedroom ceiling. No cracks. There had been cracks in her old L.A. apartment. Counting them had given her something to do in the hours between waking up and actually _getting_ up. Hopefully being at home would help things. Perhaps when she started patrolling again, her nights would resettle into some semblance of normalcy. Well, Slayer normalcy, anyway.

After she had finished crying herself into oblivion last night, she had been sure that she would drop off as soon as her head hit the pillow. No such luck. Instead she just lay there, feeling the miserable pull of heretofore uncharted levels of exhaustion, her bedside clock mocking her with its neon display.

Last night wasn't the first time she had let that priceless window of opportunity pass her by. She had purposely stayed up all night a few weeks ago, expecting to crash had and sleep soundly that second night. And she had, but only for a few hours. She couldn't even really blame the nightmares anymore either. While her dreams weren't exactly Disney material, they weren't the vivid Technicolor wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat-doozies that had followed her throughout the first half her absence.

She hated lying in the dark with nothing but her own thoughts to occupy her. The inside of her head still wasn't her favorite place to be. Especially now that she had to interact with her fellow man on a level infinitely more personal than 'May I take your order?'

Buffy knew she needed to reclaim the motions of everyday life. She crawled out of bed after several hours of not-sleeping, trudged into the bathroom and subsequently the shower. A good soak under the hot spray had her feeling almost human again. And if makeup didn't completely hide the shadows beneath her eyes, they at least helped. But while she had brokered a fragile truce with the woman looking out from the mirror, Buffy still couldn't bring herself to like her that much. That would take a while longer. After shrugging into some comfortable clothes she felt ready to brave the descent downstairs. Once more into the breach.

Her late night catharsis had taken the edge off her nerves, even as it failed to drive her into unconsciousness. Her mother's forced cheer was only moderately irritating this morning. This was going to take time, she again reminded herself. Joyce tried to fill her daughter in on all the happenings she had missed during her absence. As if Buffy hadn't left town partly to avoid dealing with life on the Hellmouth. Why, she wondered idly as she stirred her cereal, did everyone around her insist on filling every silence with talk. They probably thought that if they didn't actively engage her in conversation at all times she might take the opportunity to bolt again.

"So how did it go with your friends?" her mother asked from behind her coffee cup.

_Read: How did your friends take the fact that you abandoned them like you abandoned me?_

Buffy chose to ignore the subtext of the question. "A little awkward, but we'll deal."

"Hmmm. What did you talk about?"

Buffy thought for a moment. She might have answered that her friends mostly talked about being forced to spend months busting ass in the Slaying department. However, she knew that the S-word was probably something to be avoided around her mother for the near future. Or for the rest of their natural lives. "Stuff," she replied noncommittally.

"Must have been a lot of stuff. You got back pretty late. And you weren't exactly quiet coming in. What did you guys do?"

_Read: what kind of trouble did you get into, and when can I expect the fallout?_

"Just raped and pillaged mom, you know the usual."

Joyce's eyebrow twitched. "Very funny."

"I thought so."

Joyce very deliberately put down her coffee, set her jaw and gave Buffy the familiar look that screamed, 'Your behavior is seriously impairing my ability to pretend everything is okay.' That look was trademarked about the time Buffy burned down the school gym, and it was fine-tuned around the time of her first expulsion.

When Buffy was sixteen, she was staring down that same expression from the confines of a locked inpatient psychiatric ward; addled by sedatives and terrified by the screams of all the genuinely crazy people. During that horrible incarceration, her mother had visited her like clockwork. Having a psychopath for a daughter had apparently been easier for Joyce to deal with than the idea of her only offspring being a Vampire Slayer. Buffy had always tried very hard not to look in her mother's eyes during visiting hours. She invariably looked at her gaping sneakers instead. The _mental health counselors_ had confiscated her shoelaces at the same time they strip-searched her for contraband. They didn't want her using the shoelaces to hang herself.

And the day Joyce had dropped her only child off for her first day at Sunnydale High, she had given her that same patented glare, this time pre-emptive:

_"Try not to get kicked out,"_ Joyce had told her daughter. And Buffy had managed pretty well. For two years.

Now, at seventeen, Buffy knew her mom could shove her back into that psych ward again if she really wanted to. Not for the first time, Buffy wondered if there was any hope for this relationship to survive, or whether it was simply fated to descend into open hostility.

"Buffy, you know I'm happy you're home. You have no idea how happy," Joyce tried to assure her daughter. "But staying out partying until all hours on your first night back. Not a great way to start off."

Buffy fought down the automatic upswell of frustration. Hah. Partying. Because last night had been so much fun she had to lock herself in her room and cry for hours to recover. She felt like telling her mother that she honestly couldn't remember the last time she had stayed out at night for any other reason than slaughtering the undead.

But Buffy also knew she was never going to survive the next few weeks if she kept wigging out over every offhand comment. She had never excelled at picking her battles. Far easier just to start swinging at the first sign of trouble. Turning-the-other-cheek was not a weapon naturally in her arsenal. And if her mother thought she was going to be spending all her nights at home studying in deference to maternal sensibilities, Joyce had another thing coming. Was it that her mother still didn't buy a word of the whole Slayer gig, or was she just hoping the problem might go away with enough browbeating?

Buffy sighed loudly, feeling like she was about to address a judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one. "Okay, Mom. For reasons that I _really_ don't want to get into with you right now - you know that me going out at night – probably not going to change anytime soon."

Joyce opened her mouth, but Buffy held up a hand. "Please let me finish," she forged on. "I've got a lot I need to get used to again. I need to get used to having a mom again, having friends again,_ hopefully_ going back to school again. And then there's my not-so-day job that we are _still_ not going into right now."

Buffy's mom looked like she had about a dozen things she wanted to say, all of them probably negative. Instead Joyce just pursed her lips tightly. Buffy felt like she was playing a real-life game of minesweeper. One false move and _boom_.

"Finished yet?" Joyce asked pointedly

"Almost," Buffy answered. "For the record there was no partying last night. There was absolutely no raping and pillaging. That was a joke, in case you didn't notice. The night was PG rated for mild comedic violence _only_. Plus, I'm not exactly in the mood for whoopin' it up. I mean, God, the highlight of the evening was a _tea party_ at Giles' place."

"Mr. Giles?" Joyce looked like she had just sucked a lemon, her expression turned so sour.

Buffy's jaw clenched slightly. When the hell had her shy, bookish, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly-if-it-was-still-breathing Watcher done to deserve a place on Joyce's Shit-List. It had to be something major. God, that list was populated by a jailbait homewrecking secretary and one very morally bankrupt and highly-paid divorce lawyer. Making it on that list was like getting double-billing with the Antichrist in her mother's eyes.

Sure, her mom probably associated Giles with the whole 'my daughter really does slay vampires' concept. That doubtless had something to do with it. Buffy remembered one of their conversations yesterday. She had only been home a few hours and had asked if her mom knew how Giles was doing. She had asked about everyone, of course. Her mother had gladly shared news about the Scooby Gang. Indeed, Joyce had seemed positively relieved that Buffy was making an attempt to interact at all.

Mention Giles though, and Joyce turned monosyllabic and looked like she was ready to spit nails. Witness her mother's current expression. "You were out half the night drinking tea with the school librarian?" the woman demanded.

They _so_ needed to end this conversation, or Buffy might have to renege on her decision not to allow this to devolve into a high-volume verbal melee. _Welcome to the State of Denial. Population: my mother,_ Buffy thought bitterly. The teen suppressed a compulsive eyeroll, but still couldn't squelch the swiftly rising tide of consternation.

"Yes, with the school librarian," Buffy snapped. "_And_ with Xander _and_ Willow _and_ Oz _and_ Cordelia. It was a regular coffee-klatch. Or tea-klatch. God, mom, he's a 44-year-old stuffy British librarian for Christ's sake. You act like I'm off shooting smack or something." Her voice was probably a little louder than was prudent if she wanted to avoid full-scale familial warfare, but she was just a little too pissed right now.

Buffy shoved herself back from the table. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready to battle a hideous little toad of a principal so just *maybe* I can get my senior year back." She was out of the kitchen before her mother could fire back a reply. Buffy traversed the stairs to her bedroom in mood that could most accurately be described as bitchy. This was going to be a long day. Probably a long few days. And if she didn't manage to get back into Sunnydale High it was going to be a long year.

+++

Just when Buffy thought the day couldn't get any warmer or fuzzier, she laid eyes on Principal Snyder. He had no qualms about informing the Summers women, in no uncertain terms, that the idea of permanently barring Buffy from Sunnydale High filled him with positively orgiastic pleasure. By the time they left his office Joyce was once again fuming and Buffy was seriously tempted to start singing a rousing rendition of "Snyder Uber Allez" on the way out.

The march back through the halls was punctuated by Joyce's indignation. But when they passed the library, Buffy gave up even the pretense of listening to her mother's angry Snyder-fueled tirade. Buffy paused at the large double doors, seized by the compelling desire to sit down at the familiar table and confide in her Watcher how viscerally disturbing this day was becoming. The idea that she might never be allowed return to this place was seriously wigsome. But as much as she wanted to unburden herself to Giles, she hadn't earned back that right yet.

She wished that Slayers came with X-ray vision so she could at least see the familiar setting: The stacks that contained an amusingly disproportionate ratio of demonology texts to square meters of shelf space. The computer Willow used to hack her way through all but the most indomitable firewalls. Xander's favorite chair (he insisted that he slept better in that particular chair, even though they were all exactly the same). The hidden cache of all things pointy and deadly that her Watcher kept under lock and key. Giles' office with its world-class-anal-retentive filing system and the secret stash of real English tea that she managed to cajole him into sharing on occasion. And her Watcher; doubtless poring over the latest occult tome with the single-minded enthusiasm usually reserved for five-year-olds on Christmas morning.

Buffy bit back a growl. Yes she screwed up. But dammit, she was back, and she was trying. Yes, she screwed up badly, but wasn't there _some_ part of her life that she was allowed to keep?

And while she really didn't do it consciously, maybe her hand did come up, and maybe she was about to push open those doors and walk onto that hallowed ground. If only to burn the place in her memory in case she'd never be allowed to actually sit there as a student ever again.

Even the sound of the class bell failed to drown out Joyce's derogatory statement aimed not at the wicked little troll in the principal's office, but the man most likely just a few meters away in the library. And Buffy maybe lost it just a _little_. With no consideration for propriety or passersby, Buffy proceeded to respectfully request that her mother cease and desist with the snarky shit and that a proctology exam might be in order. Because all signs pointed to the fact that _something_ had crawled up there and expired.

So Buffy turned on her heels, nearly plowing into Xander and Willow. They were probably headed for the library. _Must be nice_, she thought darkly. Based on their expressions they had likely witnessed the entire exchange, but she couldn't bring herself to care at the moment. She stormed past without a word, not even stopping in the parking lot. It was a nice day for a walk, anyway. The option of riding home with her mother wasn't even worth considering.

+++

Giles stifled a sneeze behind his handkerchief. Nose full of dust, most likely; an occupational hazard of working in a library. Or perhaps someone, somewhere was talking about him. He returned the cloth square to his pocket and focused his attention back on the task at hand. Reshelving. Tedious busywork that left far too much room for the mind to wander into unpleasant territory.

Buffy was back. He had reminded himself of that fact countless times today. And while that thought caused a suffusion of warmth in some elemental part of him, it also fed a black well of uncertainty. Last evening had been characterized by a surreal quality; like a pleasant dream that had somehow become warped; melted and twisted like a clock in a bloody Dali painting.

There had been very little of the Slayer he remembered in the broken creature that graced his stoop last night. He had seen her vulnerable expression grow shuttered, become walled-over and brittle, and then finally crack. His traitorous mind replayed that final moment in slow-motion. Buffy had given him a barely audible, strangled apology and fled his home and his presence; her expression, her body language all screaming at him to stay away. She had looked terrified.

His Slayer had always worn her bravado well, even from their first acquaintance. As her Watcher, Giles had been impressed by ability to project confidence in the face of impossible odds. Her armor had stood her in good stead over the years. So what had happened over the past few months to shatter it so completely? Had destroying Angel alone brought her so low? Was Angel's hold over Buffy truly so great that the vampire still retained her heart, even from his seat in Hell? Giles' hand trembled slightly as he shelved another book.

The Watcher heard his name being called from the library's lower level. He abandoned his shelving duties in favor of Willow and Xander, who were already taking up their customary seats at the library's large oak table. He took note of the pair's tight expressions. Xander was scowling and Willow was looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"Did something happen?" the librarian asked as he approached the center table.

Xander jerked his head at the direction of the library entrance, "Just the Summers' edition of Family Feud. Live and in-person."

He was fluent in centuries-dead languages, yet the diction of the California Teenager still eluded him at every turn. "Explain," Giles requested.

Willow looked rather grim. "Buffy and her mom were just having a throwdown in the hallway," the redhead explained.

Giles looked sharply at the girl, then Xander. "Not in the physical sense, I would hope."

Xander shook his head. "Nah. Less WWF, more Jerry Springer. Uncensored and minus the chair-throwing."

"Buffy and her mother were fighting? Here, at the school?"

The younger man shrugged. "Figured it had to do with Snyder. Wasn't Buffy supposed to meet with Der Furher today?"

That made sense. "Yes," the Englishman confirmed. "I can't imagine the meeting was a pleasant one. Principal Snyder is doubtless enjoying Buffy's disadvantage, being the paragon of evil that he is."

The three paused momentarily; all thinking something that no one of them wanted to field aloud.

Willow, not for the first time, demonstrated her bravery in the face of unpleasantness. "Giles? What happens if Buffy really can't come back? Can Snyder really do that?"

Giles only stammered slightly in his reply. "He can try. But even if the principal has ruled against her, she can still appeal to the school board. I rather think we should deal with that particular bridge when we come to it."

Xander made a sound of three-parts frustration, one-part disgust. "We're gonna have to deal with it sooner or later. It's not like she can waltz back in town and expect to just pick up where she left off."

"Are we really talking about Principal Snyder, here?" Willow asked her childhood friend pointedly.

Xander's anger, a tangible force in the last three months, was roiling under the surface. "C'mon, Will. She took off without a word. Does she even care what we were going through all summer? Or even before that when she was too busy screwing around with dead-boy to notice -"

"Xander!"

The young man looked appropriately horrified at his own words. "Aw, man. I didn't mean that kind of screwing. I meant metaphorical screwing, not actual scr –"

"Xander!" Giles snapped. "You are _not_ helping."

Xander looked suddenly and thoroughly miserable. "No shit. Story of my life," he spat.

Giles sighed and pulled up a chair, joining the teens at the table. "The past few months have been difficult for all of us. Both of you, and Oz, and Cordelia have given far more of yourselves than anyone has the right to expect."

"It's not like we can all snuggle into our beds at home, knowing what Sunnydale really is," Willow explained.

The Watcher acknowledged her words with a nod. "Nevertheless, you have fought, and you have suffered much for little thanks and no reward." He allowed his words to settle before addressing another unpleasant topic.

"Regardless of the circumstances, Buffy is now back," Giles continued. "While I would dearly love to give you all a reprieve from your nightly obligations, I fear Buffy may not be in a frame of mind conducive to slaying. Until we are sure of her capacity, I don't believe she should patrol unescorted." The looks Giles received indicated he had not been the only one to note the Slayer's fragile countenance last night.

Willow volunteered with only a little hesitation. "I'll go with her tonight. Oz is all about the Dingo practice tonight anyway."

"Thank you," Giles said.

"And I'll give you a full report."

He nodded gratefully while forcing down an inner grimace. He had not wanted to have to ask, and Willow had saved him from making the crass request aloud. It should really be him patrolling with the Slayer. He was her Watcher, after all. But hours of torture by Angelus and months of neglect by himself had left him as little more than a liability on patrol. He also felt a not-inconsiderable twinge of quilt for asking Willow to spy on her own best friend.

(TBC)


End file.
